


close your eyes (everything's gonna be just fine)

by CC_Writes_Stuff



Series: Make It Hurt: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Claude von Reigan Has Trust Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Hilda Valentine Goneril is a Little Shit, Hurt/Comfort, I also can't believe that Claude von Reigan Has Trust Issues is also not a tag yet, I can't believe I don't have that yet, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Paranoia, Pining, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stressed Claude von Riegan, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26513752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CC_Writes_Stuff/pseuds/CC_Writes_Stuff
Summary: Paranoia is something that Claude's dealt with since he first came to Fodlan. It still doesn't make it easier to deal with - but Byleth does.-Written As An Alternate Prompt for Whumptober Day 11: Comfort
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril & My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: Make It Hurt: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915390
Comments: 4
Kudos: 82
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	close your eyes (everything's gonna be just fine)

**Author's Note:**

> I know this could've gone with day 18: Paranoia but I'm doing something different for that

He wasn’t sure what it was that woke him, really.

Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Maybe it was the nightmare. Whatever it was, it had Claude shooting upright in his bed, hand darting under his pillows, fingers curling around the handle of his dagger.

His room seemed a lot darker than it had been just a few hours ago. Less light, and more shadows on the walls and floor, more treacherous. Claude’s eyes scanned the room, looking for anything, anyone, that didn’t belong, for hooded figures with glinting knives and vials of poison hiding in the dark. There was no one there, though, just stacks of books and thrown clothes on chairs and other knick-knacks that, in the wrong light, could be seen as people. But no living, breathing, human soul, or silent shadow coming to take his life.

Letting out a shaky breath, Claude flexed his grip on the dagger, trying to will his heart to stop pounding. It sounded too loud in the quiet of the room, like footsteps running down a hall or drums at a feast. He didn’t need any noise, just quiet, so he could hear if anything was amiss.

Realistically, he knew that everything was alright, that no one had made the connection that he was Almyran just yet. Maybe Cyril, since the kid was Almyran himself and could probably recognize more than most people, and Teach, because she was Like That, but not the other Deer, and definitely not the fact he was a prince. He had taken great pains to hide his lineage from the Deer, and didn’t tell anyone but a select few people in the capital when he left to come to Fodlan, so the chances of an assassin coming to kill him were slim, but…

Well, it was called paranoia for a reason.

Besides, they were in a war, too. An Imperial spy was, at this point, far more likely to come to kill him for leading the war against Edelgard than a close-minded assassin.

Once his heart slowed down, Claude rolled down his sleeve and slipped the dagger into the sheath he kept strapped to his arm, before pulling the blankets off of him. No chance of him getting back to sleep tonight, so he may as well get some work done. Train a little, try to master a new combat art, or figure out how to keep the war going from here. Something to keep his mind distracted, his hands busy. The paranoia would go away eventually, he hoped. There were no assassins here, he’d be fine, he’d be safe.

 _You’re safe,_ he told himself, even as he flinched when Petra approached him a little too quickly and quietly from behind, or almost got impaled by one of Shamir’s knives during her training.

 _They aren’t trying to kill you,_ he told himself, even as he declined Teach’s offers for tea or lunch because _what if someone tried to poison him?_ Even though he knew she wouldn’t do that and enjoyed spending time with her ~~_(maybe a little too much maybe not enough)_~~

 _It’s just your imagination,_ he told himself, tossing and turning to try and sleep with no avail - everything in his room looked like a shadow of a person, and Claude found himself outside before he realized it, the cold air reminding him of Almyran nights, hand still gripping his dagger.

Sometimes, though, it really didn’t feel like that. Sometimes, it felt like he was standing at the edge of the cliff, and he was one bad accident or slip-up or lax protocol away from falling to his death. Everything felt too real, with imaginary foes lurking in the hallways or tunnels of Abyss and Garreg Mach, ready to strike.

It was setting Claude on edge, making him double and triple check everything. That the door and window to his room were locked tight, that there were no assassins hiding in the shadows of his room, that his food or drink wasn’t poisoned (when he actually did eat, of course).

But it still didn’t feel like he was doing enough, though. Like someone would slip through the protective walls he made for himself and end his life. It made it hard to sleep at night, and what sleep he did get was fitful, his dreams bordering the edge between dreams and nightmares. It was a double whammy, paranoia making it hard to sleep and the lack of sleep making the paranoia worse.

It was after one of these nightmares did Claude find himself heading up to the Goddess Tower again, hoping the open air and starlit sky would help with his anxiety bordering on paranoia. Usually, what the dagger under his pillow and a tonic didn’t do for his nerves, the open night sky would, wide and expanseful, making his fears seem much smaller than they were. It made his dreams seem closer, seeing how far away the stars he couldn’t reach were.

When he got up there, though, he was graced with the sight of Teach leaning on the window here, looking up at the sky. Claude paused in his steps, heart leaping up into his throat, before he swallowed it down.

 _It’s just your former professor, your ally,_ he told himself, shaking his head. It’s not an assassin. _There’s no need to be so goddamn paranoid. Byleth wouldn’t stab you in the back like that, Khalid._

With a long exhale of breath that bordered on a sigh, Claude joined her at the window, his boots echoing loud against his tears from the stone walls. Byleth spared him a single glance, face glowing from the moonlight, before she looked back up at the stars. He mirrored her pose, resting his elbows on the stone wall and gazing upwards to the twinkling view.

“Can’t sleep?” Byleth asked after a few seconds of silence, her voice gentle as moonlight.

“Not really,” He replied. He didn’t explain, and he knew that if Byleth wanted one, she would ask. “You?”

For another beat, two, three, she was silent, then said, “...Nightmares.”

Claude nodded in agreement, his eyes darting from the sky to her. She was no longer looking up at the sky, but down at her hands, clasped together in front of her. After a second of hesitation, he shuffled just a bit closer to her side, a silent show of support. Nightmares were common in wartimes.

One of the things that he liked about Byleth was that, when it was just the two of them, there was no need for words, no need for Claude to fill the void with talking or jokes. It was just the two of them, staring up at the sea of stars in the sky, with no need to talk. They were just simply there, existing, and crazy as it sounded, but Claude felt all the more calmer for it.

Maybe he still had his walls up _(maybe he always would)_ but they all seemed to lower, just a bit, when he was around her. Not enough to spill everything about himself, but just enough to be more honest, more open, more vulnerable, with her than he would normally allow himself to be with other people. With just the two of them, Claude felt his worries drifting away, swallowed by the silence and the vast, inky-blue sky littered with stars that glimmered like gold.

But, as it had seemed to be doing lately, Claude found his gaze being drawn towards the former Golden Deer professor.

She was still looking up at the sky, her gaze focused on some far-off star that he couldn’t see, and, at the moment, couldn’t bring himself to care. In the pale moonlight, Byleth looked beautiful, with the soft glow of the moon making her skin and shoulders and hair glow, the stars of the night sky reflected in her eyes and making them shine, the curve of her lips soft and pink, and his heart skipped a beat for a very different reason than it had earlier.

Feeling his cheeks heat up, Claude forced himself to look away and up at the stars again so he didn’t get caught staring. Because _fuck,_ he wanted to kiss her, and if he didn’t look away he just might, and it wasn’t fair to Byleth for him to fall in love with her during a war. That would come afterwards, and at that thought, Claude started envisioning his dream in his mind’s eye, trying to take his mind off his love for Byleth and the fear lurking in the corners of his mind.

Still, after he did, he was too focused on the sky to notice Byleth looking at him.

* * *

“Hey, Hilda?”

“Hmm?” The pinkette asked, daintily applying some bright blue nail polish to Byleth’s hands with mastered skill. “Something wrong, Professor? Do you not like the color?”

“No, not that,” Byleth responded, holding up her other hand to inspect the drying polish on it. She wasn't sure why Hilda had decided to throw a girl's night and paint her nails, especially after Grondor, but... she did admit, it looked nice. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“I’m not cleaning the library with Lorenz, Professor,” Hilda responded easily, shaking her head.

“Not that, either,” Byleth said, shaking her head. “It’s… about Claude.”

Mercedes and Annette, in the corner of Hilda’s room with Annette doing Mercedes’ hair, giggled.

Something started to gleam in the pinkette's eyes as she looked up to meet Byleth’s own, a smile that Byleth recognized as her scheming one spreading across her face.

“Oh? What about him, Professor?” She asked, tilting her head as she paused in her activity, voice dripping with interest and something Byleth couldn’t name. Byleth chooses to ignore it - she had more pressing matters than to figure out what little scheme Hilda was concocting now.

“Maybe it’s just me, but does he seem more… different, lately, to you?” Byleth queried, and Hilda frowned, before looking down at her hand once more.

“What do you mean by that?”

Byleth frowned, recalling how Claude’s behavior seems to have changed over the past week. “Claude… he seems skittish. Jumpier. Stressed, tired, tense.” The calmest she’s seen him be was those few hours up in the Goddess Tower together, just staring at the sky, but the tension was back in him the next day. “I’ve invited him to lunch five times this week, but he’s denied all but one. The only time he didn’t, he barely even ate, and spent most of his time talking to me.” She also noticed how critical the look he was giving his food was, picking at it with measured bites, but didn’t say anything.

“Really?” Hilda asked, and she wasn’t faking the surprise in her voice, pink eyes wide. “Claude denied having lunch with _you_ , Professor?”

Byleth nods. From the corner, Mercedes turns her head as far as Annette will allow, putting a finger on her chin.

“He has seemed tense lately,” the healer said, frowning. “I went up to talk to him yesterday, and he jumped about a foot in the air when I spoke to him.”

Annette nods. “Yeah. I was coming back the other night from the library, and I passed by Claude on the way to my room, and he was just standing in the middle of the hallway, looking at something - I don't know what, and stayed like that for five minutes. He didn't notice me, and when I checked in on him, he looked absolutely wrecked.”

Byleth hummed, nodding and watching as Hilda applied the paint to her nails. “I thought I was the only one. Do any of you know if something’s wrong with him?”

The three ladies in Hilda’s room shook their heads, and Mercedes spoke.

“I feel like if Claude was having problems, he’d probably go to you, Professor. You’re the person he’s closest with here.” Hilda grinned in agreement.

“Yeah. You two are _suuuper_ close, you know? I’m sure he’d tell you, well, just about anything.” She shrugged. “I mean, there are some things he might not talk to you about, but he’d definitely come to me instead. But if he hasn’t come to either of us, well… You might have to talk to him, Professor.”

That was the problem - she wasn’t sure if Claude would want to talk. When it came to, really, anything but himself, he was almost a chatterbox, or at least nosy to the point of invasive. But when it came to himself and his own matters, he was a lot more tight-lipped, evasive, deflective. On principle, she tried not to push him, let him talk when she was ready, but… this time, she might have to break that.

Sighing, Byleth nodded. “I will.”

* * *

Another night, another nightmare.

Claude couldn’t remember what it was this time - they were fickle like that, with him usually either remembering most of the dream in vivid details that made his hands shake and heart ache with all the possibilities of what could've gone wrong so far, or too distant and foggy to recall anything but the lingering feeling that something was _wrong, wrong, wrong_.

It was the latter this night, that feeling pulling and tugging at his chest, persistent and making Claude antsy, wanting to make sure everything was okay even though the rational part of him said everything was, but the feeling still stayed, curling around his chest and digging into his heart.

From experience, e knew that laying in bed would only make it worse, so instead of tossing and turning and looking for shadows like he normally did, he grabbed his dagger and headed outside, trying to ignore the feeling that he was being watched - he wasn't, right?

Yeah, it was just his imagination.

Goosebumps still ran up his skin, the feeling not leaving as he stepped out into the hall. 

Footsteps sounded somewhere, and Claude tensed, head swiveling to the side as he tried to remember how to breathe. But there was no one there. Just the moonlight, shadows and...

and...

_Dimitri?_

For a moment, Claude thought he saw the hulking, imposing figure of the former prince gone mad, with a single blazing blue eye and the glow of Arheadbar, silent and still, and he unsheathed his dagger from its sheath. A comforting weight in his hands as he took a step back.

But he blinked, and Dimitri was gone, the flicker of a torch replacing the glow of the lance.

Gulping, Claude looked down at his feet and kept walking. The dagger stayed in his hands.

The sky was darker, cloudier, tonight, bringing a wind of impending rain, the stars harder to see and the moon’s glow much more ominous. Claude wasn’t sure if that would help his nerves, but it was worth a shot, and he started walking.

Step, step, pause, turn. Stare. Look around. Turn. Step, step, step, look around. Step, pause, listen. Turn. Step, step, step, look around. Step, step, freeze.

He crossed the front of the pond and went towards the marketplace, giving a half-hearted wave to the guards posted there. The silver of their lances gleamed in the moonlight, and to Claude, they were arrows pointed at him, so he quickly ducked into the reception hall.   
  
The shadows were moving. Claude paused, tense, waiting for them to move towards him. They were no longer moving.

Gulping, he stuck to the middle of the hall, eyes darting to the corners of the room. He still felt like he was being watched, the hair on the back of his neck rising, something cold pressing into his neck-

Claude froze a beat, two, three. Waited for someone to speak. When only silence answered before, Claude looked over his shoulder, expecting to see someone behind him, following him.

No one was. 

Claude gulped, looking ahead of him again, hand still gripping the dagger, trying to ignore the feeling of spiders crawling on his skin.   
  
He was safe. He was alone. He was far away from the palace, and no one was coming to kill him. He was safe.

It didn’t feel like it.

This time, he didn’t head to the Goddess Tower, instead slipping past the audience chamber and Rhea’s room, up to the star terrace. A change of scenery might be what he needed. It gave him a good view of the Knight’s hall to check for assassins and was closer. Plus, there was less of a chance for him to be sniped than if he walked across the bridge or through the cathedral - there were many places there for assassins to hide. 

_There are no assassins,_ Claude told himself, but it still didn't stop him from going to the terrace, despite the openness of it. But it was clear, he determined, and no obstructions, no items or stacks of books that could turn out to be people instead. No places for assassins to hide, unless they were clinging to the side of the wall. That was _crazy_.

Claude still looked over. 

No one was there, just like expected. It still didn't make the prickly feeling on his go away as he sheathed his dagger. 

Letting out a sigh, Claude rubbed his arms and looked up at the sky, his gaze searching for the constellations his mother used to point out and name to him, letting the memory of her voice drown out the flashes of the nightmares he did remember, let him drift away from the worry in his chest, making him see assassins in the shadows, unwilling to leave, rooted to his chest. 

Claude wasn’t quite sure how long he was up there for, just staring at the sky and listening to the wind, and he was so lost in his own thoughts he didn’t even hear Byleth coming up. Didn’t notice her until the feeling that something was _wrong_ tugged at his chest again, and he looked behind him to see her standing there.

He started, and had to force his hand to not dart to grab his dagger from the sudden presence of someone behind him. _It’s just Byleth,_ he told himself. _Just Byleth. Just your Teach. Just your friend._

 _  
_ Even then, he couldn’t quite stop his breath from hitching, and nearly jumping put of his skin. Claude would say he hoped she didn’t notice, but knowing Byleth, she probably did. So, instead, he hoped she didn’t point it out.

At this point, Claude didn’t know how they kept finding each other, and if he were more religiously inclined, he’d say something like fate. Maybe it wasn’t fate, but he could say that there was definitely something there, after reuniting at the Goddess Tower on the dawn of the Millenium Festival - of their new world.

“Hey, Teach,” Claude said as casually as he could, turning to face her properly instead of just looking over his shoulder at her. Even he was surprised at how well he managed to hide the shake in his voice. “Didn’t hear you there - it’s rude to sneak up on a friend, hmm?”

Byleth hummed, walking forward. “You looked like you were thinking hard about something. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Well, thanks for the consideration, Teach,” Claude said, but he was silently cursing himself for his lack of spatial awareness. How long was Byleth standing there before he noticed her? If she were actually an assassin, he'd be dead a couple of times over.

Byleth came to a stop next to him, resting her arms on the wall of the terrace, and he looked at her. “Nightmares again?” He asked, knowing that's why he was up there. The feeling that someone was watching him had come back after he noticed her, and he glanced around, balling his hand into a fist, before he forced it to relax, and set it on top of the stone wall. Forced himself to look back at her.

After a moment, she nodded. Claude’s heart twisted in sympathy, the buzzing, nagging feeling that something was _wrong,_ that he was being watched, still not going away. He tugged at the collar of his shirt. “You?” Byleth asked, looking up at him.

Claude nodded too. “Yeah. Nightmares.” He couldn’t count how many nightmares he’d had since Grondor. They were all about different things - sometimes assassination attempts on him that all his strategies couldn’t beat. Sometimes assassination attempts on him that failed, but instead led to the death of one of his frie- allies.

A lot of them, though, were about Byleth nowadays.

Byleth, falling, and he wasn’t fast enough to reach her, slipping out of his grasp with a scream that shook him to his core, that haunted his dreams until it drove him mad.

Byleth, kneeling in front of Edelgard with bound hands and feet, and the Empress was raising Amyr for the kill, and Claude was never fast enough to save her. Her blood would always be staining his hands, too warm, and her gaze was unfocused on something he couldn't still, still as the day he met her.

Byleth, smiling a cruel bastardization of the smile he loved so much as she ran him through with her sword, blazing red. Sometimes, she'd be kissing him, lips soft and warm against his own, but it was never enough to drive out the pain he was feeling in his chest.

Those were always the cruelest nightmares.

Byleth’s voice snapped Claude out of his musings.

“Are you okay?”

Claude looked at her, blinking in surprise. She was looking up at him, lips turned downwards ever so slightly and eyebrows worried. It was the same expression she wore in the month after Lord Lonato's death, after the one time Claude fell out of a tree and broke his arm, the look she's had since Grondor whenever she checked up on any of the students, himself included. It was the one of worry, of concern, for her Deer, and it made Claude's heart twist - when was the last time someone who _wasn't_ her looked at him like that? 

He knew she was concerned, concerned about him. But the part of Claude that had never healed from all the hurt he experienced as a kid didn't believe it, and that made his chest twist even more. Claude wanted to trust her, and he did, a little, but he knew he didn't trust her enough, and it hurt. 

“I’m fine, Teach,” He lied, pushing down the guilt he felt at lying to _her_ , of all people. When did that even happen, when he wanted to stop lying? When he first met her, Claude was more than okay with lying, manipulating, using her as another pawn, another ally for him to win the game. He couldn’t figure out when it all changed, when the person he looked at as a pawn suddenly upgraded to someone that he looked at as a queen _(his queen)_ when he fell in love with her.

“Are you sure?” Byleth asked again, turning to face him more fully before, after what seemed like a moment of hesitance, she brought her hand up and rested it on his cheek. Claude’s heart fluttered at the touch, so gentle and kind and soft, despite the callousness of years of mercenary work, of wielding the sword. “You seem… stressed. Jumpy. You look like you haven’t gotten a proper rest in ages, and I’ve barely seen you eat. Are you sure everything’s alright?”

Claude wanted to say yes, he was alright, and not delve into all the paranoia that he’d been feeling for a good while, delve into the nightmares and stress and the lingering feeling that all of this - their progress in the war, the progress to his dream, his relationship with the Deer, with _Byleth_ \- would turn on its head, and he’d be left alone again. He wasn’t even sure if he could put it into words, all the feelings building up in his chest and wrapping around his heart, ready to pierce.

But, _Fuck,_ was he _weak_ when it came to Byleth.

“To be honest… I’m scared, Byleth,” he admits, and one part of him immediately wants to take that back and shut up because he’s a prince of Almyra and can’t afford to show weakness-

-but he’s with Byleth and he knows she won’t judge him for it or take advantage of it.

“Scared? About what?” Her voice is soft, kind, and gentle, not pressuring him to say anything but he still knows that she'll listen if he decides to talk about it.

“Well, I’m not sure if it’s being scared so much as paranoia, but…” Claude pauses, trying to figure out how he wants to say all of this. He’s not really sure if he _wants_ to say this. “I’ve told you about… about the attempts on my life before, right?”

Byleth nods. “Yeah.”

He chuckled darkly. “Yeah… You could say that it’s left me with an… unhealthy fear of trusting others.” He frowns, and pulls his hand up, resting over Byleth’s own. “I mean, I trust you and the rest of the Deer, but… the paranoia has still never really… gone away. Some days are better than others, though, but… between Merceus being destroyed and being in the middle of a war and I’ve been having a bunch of nightmares lately… It’s just… making me jumpy, making it hard to sleep, you know?” He shakes his head, gulping. "I just feel like someone's watching me, like... like someone's out to get me, to kill me, like there are assassins hiding around every corner." 

Byleth frowned, before she walks forward and pulls him into a hug, and he stiffens. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Claude… wasn’t quite sure. Paranoia and nightmares just weren't things that go away in one night. It’s been years since he’s left Almyra, and still, the fear that someone will come out to assassinate him hasn’t gone. But… having Byleth hugging him… it just feels right, and he slowly wraps his arms around her.

“Just… stay with me, please?” He asks her, hearing his voice shake. Claude doesn’t want to let her go. She’s warm, grounding, and he feels _safe_.

Byleth nods once, and Claude lets out a sigh, closing his eyes. Maybe the war isn’t over yet. Maybe his dream is only halfway to completion. Maybe the paranoia will never go away. But right here, holding Byleth in his arms, it’s perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> [I Have a Tumblr!](https://ccwritesstuff.tumblr.com/)


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